Karl Renner and the Politics of Accommodation: Moderation versus Revenge

¹ Synopticus (pseudonym), Zur österreichischen Nationalitätenfrage (Vienna 1899); Staat und Nation (Vienna, 1899); Springer, Rudolf (pseudonym), Staat und Parliament (Vienna, 1901); Der Kampf der österreichischen Nationen um den Staat (Vienna, 1902); Die Krise des Dualismus und das Ende der deakistischen Episode (Vienna, 1904); Grundlagen und Entwicklungsziele der österreichischen-ungarischen Monarchie (Vienna, 1906). Renner's, scholarship on nationalities continued under his own name, including Der nationale Streit um die Ämter und die Sozialdemokratie (Vienna, 1908); Der deutsche Arbeiter und der Nationalismus (Vienna); Österreich's Erneuerung: Politisch-programmatische Aufsätze (Vienna, 1916), Vol. 1, pp. 27, 38–46. Politische Demokratie und nationale Autonomie (Vienna, 1917); Das Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Nationen in besonderer Anwendung auf Österreich, Part 1, “Nation und Staat” (Vienna, 1918).

² Wehler, Hans-Ulrich, Sozialdemokratie und Nationalstaat: Nationalitätenfragen in Deutschland, 1840–1914 (Göttingen, 1971).

³ Abstracted from Renner, , Das Selbstbestimmungsrecht der Nationen in besonderer Anwendung auf Österreich (Leipzig and Vienna, second edition, 1918), pp. 227–294. This is a revised edition of Der Kampf der österreichischen Nationen um den Staat (1902).

⁴ Renner, , Was ist die Nationale Autonomie? Was ist Soziale Verwaltung? Einführung in die nalionale Frage und Erläuterung der Grundsätze des nationalen Programms der Sozialdemokratie (Vienna, 1913), p. 35.

⁵ Renner, , Österreichs Erneuerung (Vienna, 1916), p. 39.

⁶ Renner, , Der nationale Streit (Vienna, 1908).

⁷ Renner, , Selbstbestimmungsrecht, pp. 286–291.

⁸ Renner, Karl, An der Wende zweier Zeiten. Lebenserinnerungen (Vienna, 1946), pp. 14–15. Hereafter cited as Lebenserinnerungen.

⁹ “I have found that people who know that they are preferred or favoured by their mother give evidence in their lives of a peculiar self-reliance and an unshakeable optimism which often seem like heroic attributes and bring actual success to their possessors.” Freud, Sigmund, The Interpretation of Dreams, in Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works, trans, and ed. Strachey, James, Freud, Anna, Strachey, Alix, and Tyson, Alan (London, 1953–1958), vol. 5, 398n. Hereafter cited as Standard Edition.

¹⁰ Renner, , Lebenserinnerungen, p. 51.

¹¹ Ibid., pp. 40–41.

¹² lbid, p. 52.

¹³ Hannak, Jacques, Karl Renner und seine Zeit (Vienna, 1965), pp. 217–218.

¹⁴ Renner, , Marxismus, Krieg und Internationale: Kritische Studien über offene Probleme des wissenschaftlichen und des praktischen Sozialismus in und nach dem Weltkrieg (Stuttgart, 1918), iv.

¹⁵ Ibid., p. 184.

¹⁶ Ibid., pp. 185–187.

¹⁷ Kann, Robert A., Renner's Beitrag zur Lösung nationaler Konflikte im Lichte nationaler Probleme der Gegenwart (Vienna, 1973).

¹⁸ Siegler, Heinrich, Die österreichisch-italienische Einigung über die Regelung des Südtirolkonflikts (Bonn, Vienna, Zürich, 1970); Österreichs Souveranität, Neutralität, Prosperität (Vienna, Bonn, Zürich, 1967), Chap. 3 “Das Problem Süditrol,” pp. 40–70, trans. Austria: Problems and Achievements since 1945 (Bonn, Vienna, Zürich, 1969); Toscano, Mario, Alto Adige-South Tryol: Italy's Frontier with the German World, ed. Carbone, George A. (Baltimore and London, 1975); Waldheim, Kurt, Der österreichische Weg: Aus der Isolation zur Neutralität (Vienna, Munich, Zürich, 1971), trans, as The Austrian Example (New York, 1973), see Chap. 9 “Südtirol”; Huter, Franz, Süditrol: Eine Frage des europäischen Gewissens (Munich, 1965); Alcock, Antony Evelyn, The History of the South Tyrol Question (Geneva, 1970).

¹⁹ Stadler, Karl R., Austria (London, 1971), Chap. 3, pp. 82–105, is particularly good on these Austrian achievements in the peace settlement.

²⁰ Stadler, , “Karl Renner. Der Mann und sein Werk,” in Renner. Eine Bibliographie (Vienna, Frankfurt, Zürich, 1970), p. 12.

²¹ Loewenberg, Peter, “Austro-Marxism and Revolution: Otto Bauer, Freud's ‘Dora’ Case, and the Crisis of the First Austrian Republic,” in Decoding the Past: The Psychohistorical Approach (New York, 1983), pp. 161–204.

²² Renner, , Wege der Verwirklichung (1929, 1947) (I have used the 1947 edition, Offenbach a.M.), p. 13.

²³ Ibid., pp. 96–98.

²⁴ Ibid., p. 118.

²⁵ Wandruszka, Adam, “Österreichs politische Struktur,” in Benedikt, Heinrich, ed., Geschichte der Republik Österreich (Vienna, 1954), p. 454.

²⁶ Renner, to Hermann, Müller, 07 9, 1938, Renner Nachlass, II, Verwaltungsarchiv, Vienna.

²⁷ Renner, to Kautsky, Karl, 09 3, 1929, Kautsky Nachlass, XIX, 174, International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam.

²⁸ Renner, to Kunschak, Leopold, 11 11, 1931, Renner Nachlass, II, File.K. Staatliches Verwaltungsarchiv, Vienna.

²⁹ Renner, to Gruber, Josef, 11 27, 1930, Renner Nachlass, file G. Staatliches Verwaltungsarchiv, Vienna.

³⁰ Wandruszka, in Benedikt, , Geschichte der Republik Österreich, p. 453.

³¹ See, for example, the instructions to the frontier post in Feldkirch to search Renner's luggage and person most carefully on his exit from and entry to Austria under the pretext of currency controls. Ministerium des Innern, BKA, Inneres, General Direktion für öffentliche Sicherheit 316:904–St.B. No. 51, January 23, 1935. Verwaltungsarchiv, Vienna.

Renner was spied on in the train from Paris to Austria in October 1935 and his conversation reported. He said that he looked forward to a coalition government with Social Democratic participation and the return to a half parliamentary regime. Report of October 4, 1935 by a security police spy. The cover letter says: “You will see from this how little one may rely on the promises of old party chiefs (alien Parteibonzen).” Bureau of the Vice Chancellor to State Secretary Baron Hammerstein, October 10, 1935, Ibid., No. 50.

³² Renner, , “Niederschrift,” 01 23, 1935, ibid.

³³ Buttinger, Joseph, In the Twilight of Socialism: A History of the Revolutionary Socialists of Austria (New York, 1953), pp. 422–423.

³⁴ The entire text is reprinted in Hannak, , Renner, pp. 650–652. In Hannak's, opinion Renner committed “a far reaching mistake” (p. 652).

³⁵ Luža, Radomír, Austro-German Relations in the Anschluss Era (Princeton, 1975), pp. 71–72.

³⁶ Renner, , Die Gründung der Republik Deutschösterreich, der Anschluss und die Sudetendeutschen: Dokumente eines Kampfes ums Recht, typeset but not published, Vienna 1938, Dokumentationsarchiv des Österreichischen Widerstandes, No. 57656. This document is omitted from the otherwise complete Renner, Bibliographie (Vienna, 1970) and from his Nachlass in the Austrian Staatsarchiv.

³⁷ Ibid., p. 6.

³⁸ Ibid., p. 47.

³⁹ Ibid., p. 85.

⁴⁰ Ibid., p. 53.

⁴¹ Ibid., p. 71.

⁴² Ibid., p. 57.

⁴³ Ibid., p. 73.

⁴⁴ Ibid., pp. 77–78.

⁴⁵ Ibid., pp. 20, 50–51.

⁴⁶ Ibid., p. 7.

⁴⁷ Seitz, Karl and Renner, Karl, Krieg und Absolutismus. Friede und Recht (Vienna, 1917), p. 29.

⁴⁸ Allibone, Austin, ed., Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay (Philadelphia, 1882), p. 627.

⁴⁹ Kohut, Heinz, The Restoration of the Self (New York, 1977), p. 81.

⁵⁰ Renner to His Excellency Marshal Stalin, Moscow, April 15, 1945, in Hannak, , Renner, pp. 672–75. For background of their relationship, see Stalin's critique of Renner's ideas on nationalism in Marxism and the National Question (1913) (New York, 1942). Renner is there cited by his early pseudonym Rudolph Springer.

⁵¹ A contemporary Austrian scholar considers this a typical Austrian problem and Renner as the prototype for Austria's ambivalent position toward National Socialism and the model for the person and symbol of President Kurt Waldheim. Pelinka, Anton, Karl Renner zur Einführung (Hamburg, 1989), pp. 107–110.